Russia is seeking to convince BRICS countries to build an alternative platform for international payments that would be immune to Western sanctions when it hosts the group's leaders at a summit next week. President Vladimir Putin is keen to build up BRICS - which has expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates as well as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - as a powerful counterweight to the West in global politics and trade. The October 22-24 summit in the city of Kazan is being presented by Moscow as evidence that Western efforts to isolate Russia have failed. It wants other countries to work with it to overhaul the global financial system and end the dominance of the US dollar. The Ukrainian prosecutor’s office has opened 51,000 cases of desertion through the first nine months of 2024. The number of soldiers abandoning their posts is likely to double last year’s total. The Times of London reported data from the Ukrainian government showing that "51,000 criminal cases were initiated for desertion and abandonment of a military unit between January and September of this year." At the start of the year, Kiev was estimated to have between 500,000 and 800,000 active-duty soldiers and an additional 300,000 reservists. The Ukrainians have also sustained casualties fighting to defend from Russian advances and amid Kiev’s Kursk invasion. Kiev has struggled to fill its ranks with fresh soldiers, leading Ukraine to drop its conscription age from 27 to 25. As Kiev is still facing manpower shortages, American politicians are pushing Ukraine to drop draft age to 18. Responsible Statecraft has reported. Ukraine has also resorted to allowing prisoners to leave jail if they join the military. The United States on Wednesday said at least 3,000 North Korean troops have been deployed to Russia, raising the possibility they will be sent to fight in Russia’s war on Ukraine — an assertion made by South Korea and the Ukrainian government in Kyiv. The move may show that Moscow’s shortage of manpower amid exorbitant casualties is worse “than most people realize,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said. “We are seeing evidence that there are (North Korean) troops that have gone to Russia,” Austin told reporters..... “What, exactly, they’re doing is left to be seen.” Austin said the U.S. is still trying to determine whether North Korean troops will be deployed into Ukraine. If so, he warned, it would be a dangerous escalation. Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, who heads the largest youth gender clinic in the United States at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, told The New York Times she feared releasing the results of the study would lead them to be "weaponized" by opponents of such procedures. The doctor also told the outlet she feared the study, which is part of a project that has received nearly $10 million in taxpayer funding from the National Institutes of Health, "could be used in court to argue that 'we shouldn’t use blockers,'" according to the outlet. The study, which began in 2015, followed 95 children with an average age of 11, who started taking puberty-blocking drugs, which prevent the development of natural bodily changes such as breast growth in females or voice changes in males. After the study showed the puberty blockers offered no improvement to their mental health after two years, Olson-Kennedy claimed that was because the study's participants were already "in really good shape." Erica Anderson, a clinical psychologist who identifies as trans and specializes in working with young people who have gender dysphoria, denounced the decision to withhold the study's results, according to the New York Post. "We’re craving information about these medical treatments for gender-questioning youth. Dr. Olson-Kennedy has the largest grant that’s ever been awarded in the U.S. on the subject and is sitting on data that would be helpful to know," Anderson told the outlet. "It’s not her prerogative to decide based on the results that she will or won’t publish them," Anderson added. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling...was especially vocal. "We must not publish a study that says we're harming children because people who say we're harming children will use the study as evidence that we're harming children, which might make it difficult for us to continue harming children," Rowling tweeted. @patrician Our children, born and unborn, are under attack by the Devil himself. Anyone aligned with transgendering kids and killing the unborn is evil beyond belief. From Amir Tsarfati's Bible Bites email: Replacement Theology says that God replaced His chosen people with another group, the church. Dual Covenant theology says God has a different covenant through which He will save the Jews than He does for the salvation of the Gentiles. Both teachings are grievous errors in Biblical interpretation and thieves and robbers of wonderful truths. Replacement Theology requires that God break an everlasting, unconditional covenant made with both Israel and the land He promised to them. Dual Covenant theology makes the Holy One of Israel a misnomer because they sat that Israel can be saved without the One whom the title represents, Jesus. The truth is that Israel has not been replaced by the church, and in order for any Jew to be saved they must come to the King of Jews for salvation just like any Gentile. If the church has replaced Israel, then why is Paul talking about God taking away their sins and all Israel being saved? If Dual Covenant theology is true, then Jews can be saved by keeping the law. So, why is Paul referring to a Deliverer out of Zion, which is an idiom for Jerusalem? The lessons we should be learning from Israel are that God keeps His word, and He disciplines those whom He loves. God never loses track of His people. Israel is God’s timepiece, and the last days center on Israel. God never meant for Israel to become religious, instead He desires a relationship with His people. Does “God saving all Israel” include unbelieving Jews who reject the Messiah? No. No one is saved because of their nationality, and anyone who is saved receives that salvation by the blood of the Lamb of God slain from the foundations of the world – Jesus. Two-thirds of the Jews will die during the Tribulation and they will all die in unbelief. The Jews who come to faith in Yeshua, Jesus, will survive the Tribulation by means of divine protection, and in the end they will declare, “The Lord is my God!” Our God is faithful, and His relationship with Israel is proof of just how faithful He truly is! 
At BRICS summit, Russia to push to end dollar dominance:
Ukrainian Troops Increasingly Refusing Orders, Desertion Rates Explode:
US confirms North Korean troops in Russia amid fears they’ll be sent to fight in Ukraine:
Doctor withheld results of puberty-blocker study for political reasons: report
A medical doctor and leading proponent of transgender procedures for minors recently admitted that she deliberately withheld the results of a taxpayer-funded study because it showed there were no positive mental health effects for gender dysphoric children who used puberty blockers.
